Saturday, July 9, 2011

What should the Wizards do?

So I wrote up a post recently about the NBA's free agent period, and I realized that I didn't even consider any of the guys available for my favorite team-- the Wizards.  Which got me to thinking about why that was.  Now, the Wiz were the third-worst team in the league last year.  It's no secret that we suck.  Which makes it interesting that I didn't see any of the available free agents as an improvement for the squad.  Why is that? Well, I think to figure out what the Wiz lack, it's a good idea to figure out what they don't lack.  Which calls for a breakdown by position.

PG: John Wall is our cornerstone and really the only un-tradeable asset.  Which isn't to say that he's a finished product.  He struggled quite a bit last season, turned the ball over way too much, and didn't make enough jump shots to keep defenses honest.  That he didn't quite live up to a lot of fans' expectations, though, just speaks to how high the bar was set for him, and to the inevitable comparisons to his fellow #1-overall pick and rookie sensation Blake Griffin.  Griffin ran away with the Rookie of the Year award (though it's worth pointing out that he's two years older than Wall).  But that speaks both to his greater maturity, and to the fact that I think it's easier to adapt to the league as a power forward (especially for a physical freak like Griffin) than it is for a point guard tasked with running a team.  Wall already might be the fastest player in the league going end to end with the ball.  He's a very, very good distributor, and can get to the hoop almost at will.  Sure, he shot barely 40% from the field and under 30% from three, but he averaged better than 16 points and 8 assists (better than reigning league MVP Derrick Rose as a rookie!), played solid D, and put in 100% effort despite the team around him being... pretty bad.  And that's putting it nicely.  But he's got everything you want physically and skill-wise: he's long, he's super-athletic, he's got a good attitude, and he can both score and create.  I still think Wall is a cornerstone to build the team around, and if he develops a jumper, he'll be scary.  And in second-round pick Shelvin Mack, I think we've got a guy who can run the point for 10-12 minutes a game in spot duty, knock down open jumpers, and run the team adequately.  So I think we're pretty set at this spot, at least.

SG: This position needs an upgrade for the long run.  Nick Young isn't as terrible as a lot of Wiz fans think-- I think he could develop into a poor man's Jamal Crawford who can give you 12 points a game off the bench.  But he's not a good starting shooting guard.  He's not a terrible shooter (44% from the field, 39% from three), but he must lead the league in long, off-balance 2-point shots (aka the worst shot in basketball).  And if he's not scoring, he's not bringing anything to the table.  He's a mediocre rebounder for an off-guard, he doesn't care about defense, he doesn't create shots for others, and he's not a good enough scorer to take over a game just on that end.  He'll give you the occasional 35-point explosion, but also more than his fair share of 5/14 shooting nights.  And he gets more turnovers than assists.  Jordan Crawford is similar to Young-- he's a very high usage player (when Young went down, Crawford scored almost as much as Young), but, unlike Young, he was very inefficient (39% from the field, 24% from three; and he shot 4 threes a game!), and his rebounding wasn't much better.  He's a bit more interested on defense, and he doesn't turn the ball over as much and can create a bit, but I think he's ideally a rotation player, too.  So one of the two has to go, and we still need a starter. I suppose Josh Howard is worth mentioning here, and he was a borderline All-Star 5 years ago, but now he's a walking injury, and I don't think we'll get much out of him.  If we suck again and get lucky in the lottery, I'd like to pick up Harrison Barnes or Jeremy Lamb to play this spot next year, since what we have won't cut it, and the guys who are available on the market are either older versions of what we already have (Jamal Crawford and Jason Richardson, kind of) or headcases that our young team doesn't need (JR Smith).

SF: Technically, both of our first-round picks this season can play this spot.  I'm hopeful at least one of them pans out, so it won't be a concern going forward.  Jan Vesely (the 6th overall pick) is probably ideally a 4-man, since he's 6-11 and doesn't have much of a jump shot.  Vesely is 21 years old, but at this point, I think he's still a couple of years away from being a real contributor.  I've only seen Vesely on YouTube and NBA Draft clips but, honestly, I wasn't very impressed.  Vesely is obviously super-athletic.  He's long, he runs the floor, and he can jump out of the gym.  In terms of athleticism, the guy is a beast.  The problem is, the rest of his game just doesn't impress me.  On his YouTube clips, he struggles to catch routine entry passes into the post, which tells me that he might have small hands (a concern for a big), and he fumbles way too many passes for my liking (a problem if he's going to be flanking Wall on the break).  His rebounding numbers also weren't very impressive in Europe, and his free throw shooting was horrific (under 50%).  Defensively, he looked slow on his rotations, and was frequently off balance.  He had the length and athleticism to recover in Europe, but if he makes those mistakes in the NBA, guys will blow right by him.  Now, he's got a ton of upside, but I think he'll have to develop quite a bit, and won't play more than 15 minutes a game this coming season.  Chris Singleton is, I think, more ready to contribute right now.  Unlike Vesely, he doesn't have star potential, but he's got a very defined role.  Singleton is pretty big for a 3 (6-8, 230), and while his offensive game is unrefined, he's a very good defender who's big enough to hold his own against most NBA 4's and quick enough to guard the 2 if need be.  I think he could be a Shane Battier type of player if he develops a consistent spot-up jumper.  At worst, he'll be a solid defensive stopper for us.  I think, given that we won't be competing next year, no free agents make sense, since getting Vesely and Singleton playing time so they can develop is key.  That's also why I think we should phase out Rashard Lewis.  We took on Lewis essentially because Ernie Grunfeld was determined to dump Gilbert Arenas.  Lewis used to be a very good scorer, but right now, Lewis is just not a useful player on a young team.  He's a 6-10 spot up three-point shooter who doesn't do much else particularly well.  Hopefully, we can turn him into a 10-minute a night veteran who will be happy to collect his paycheck and mentor the young guys...

PF: Vesely can also play here, but this is where we've got a few young projects (Trevor Booker, Kevin Seraphin) and Andray Blatche.  Booker and Seraphin are undersized post players (6-8 and 6-9 respectively).  Booker is very athletic, and might turn into a solid frontcourt backup, but I think what Seraphin brings to the table is 6 fouls.  His game is completely undeveloped at this point.  Honestly, it's so undeveloped I can't even tell what his upside is.  The two of them might add up to one decent backup big, but I'd still rather have them on the team than Blatche.  Blatche doesn't turn 25 until next month, so he's still technically a young guy, and he's got some impressive skills (6-11, athletic, good skills), but I want him off the roster as soon as possible.  The guy just isn't a winner.  Now, you can look at his numbers and think that Blatche is a good PF.  He's improved them every year, and averaged almost 17 and 8 this past season.  But, in his case, the numbers lie.  Blatche spends half of every season slacking off, pouting, not caring on defense, and generally putting himself before the team.  For the last 10 games, he'll average 22 and 10 and look like a potential star.  That got him a contract extension, which he used to keep doing the same thing.  So I'll say it now: if your starting power forward is Andray Blatche, you won't be a good team.  I'm hoping we'll be able to trade him for a bag of potato chips and a juice box.  Or if we can't do that, just cut him and see what we can do with Vesely, Booker and Seraphin rotating at the 4.  Yes, we'll suck, but we suck anyway, and at least we won't have Blatche's corrosive attitude on the roster.  Ideally, Vesely will develop into the PF of the future, but if not, I wouldn't mind drafting one in one of the next two years (Jared Sullinger might be around when we draft next year, and I think he'll be a solid starting 4 in the league).  But the key here is dumping Blatche.  This is also a spot where a free agent makes sense.  Next to Wall, I think the ideal is a guy who plays like Kenyon Martin used to play when he was on the Nets with Jason Kidd-- a guy who defends, rebounds, and can get out on the break and run the floor.  I guess if David Lee played some D, he would be the closest thing to that in the league right now.

C: Javale McGee is the starter here right now.  It appears that Ernie loves him.  McGee is pretty young (23), and he had a statistically decent season last year (10 points, 8 boards a game).  His upside is obvious.  He's long (7 feet), he's super athletic (everyone who watched knows he should have won the dunk contest last year), and he's a good help-side shot blocker.  He is, however, far from a finished product.  Offensively, his game consists of dunking.  He has no post moves.  He's not as good a rebounder as a guy his size should be. And, while he's good blocking shots on the help side, he's not a very good post defender.  He doesn't have a strong base, he bites on too many pump fakes, and even in a league starved of good post scorers, the better centers handle him.  If he gets a whole lot stronger, I've heard people compare him to Tyson Chandler, but I'm a lot higher on Chandler than I was on McGee.  And if the rumor that Grunfeld rejected a straight-up McGee for the second overall pick offer is true, he should be fired (I would have traded McGee and the 6 for the 2...).  But McGee has the upside to be a solid starting center in the league, so upgrading there isn't necessarily a priority.  On the other hand, there have been rumors among Wizards fan that McGee is being shopped in a package for Dwight Howard.  If true, that would be incredible.  Howard isn't necessarily the best fit next to Wall-- Wall is built to run and Howard is more of a half-court player, even though he's probably the league's best physical specimen.  If we could pull off a trade for Howard, it would transform the team instantly.  Howard is only two years older than McGee, and a starting 5 of Wall, Harrison Barnes, Singleton, Vesely, and Howard would be downright scary, assuming Vesely and Singleton develop into solid starters.  Of course, all that is idle speculation at this point, but if there's one player that could instantly transform the Wiz into a playoff team, it's Howard.

So, realistically, what are our prospects for the future? I think Wall is entrenched at the 1, Singleton is the future starter at the 3, hopefully Vesely will be the same at the 4, and, for now at least, McGee is our guy at center.  One of Booker/Seraphin should be our top big off the bench, and one of Young/Crawford should be our first guard off the bench.  For next season, this clearly isn't a playoff roster, so it'll probably be a trip back to the lottery.  My hope is we get one of Barnes and Jeremy Lamb to fill the starting 2 spot long term, which makes for a roster that looks something like this 2-3 years from now.

PG: Wall (starter), Mack (backup)
SG: Barnes/Lamb (starter), Young/Crawford (backup)
SF: Singleton/Vesely (starter), Singleton/Vesely (backup
PF: Vesely/FA signing (starter), Booker/Seraphin (backup)
C: McGee/maybe Dwight Howard...? (starter), Booker/Seraphin (backup)

So I think we're still 2 or 3 pieces away, but for the first time in about 5 years, I've got some hope that we're building a future playoff contender.

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